Teacher’s heroism in protecting students from gunfire lauded

Waterloo Region Record

STRATFORD, CONN. — There was a side to Victoria Soto, a first-grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, that only those closest to her would have known.

She was remembered as a sister, cousin and friend by the half-dozen people who spoke Wednesday at her funeral, someone who had a passion for teaching but also a passion for gathering her extended family together whenever she could and someone who had a beguiling “goofball” side that gave them many laughs.

And then, of course, there were those who recalled her as a “quick-thinking, beautiful and selfless woman,” traits that were plainly evident when she huddled her first-graders into a closet and cupboard before a gunman shot her and several other children.

Her funeral was the first of six for the school employees who died in the massacre that took the lives of 20 young children, and it was held on a brilliantly sunny, if chilly and windy day in a classic steepled white New England church in the Lordship neighbourhood of Stratford, where Soto lived all of her 27 years.

One of many emotional high points came when Paul Simon appeared and sang The Sound of Silence, the haunting words capturing the nightmarish nature of how Soto died and also the emptiness her death left behind.

Relatives and friends, openly weeping as they spoke, remembered a young woman who on a whim insisted that all her cousins and siblings buy cheap sunglasses before a trip to Six Flags amusement park, or who woke her college roommate with Kiss the Girl from the Disney film The Little Mermaid.

“You were the funniest, goofiest person I know,” said Heather Kronk, a cousin.

Her college roommate, Rachel Schiavone, recalled how Soto was “always up for anything.”

“When she hugged you, she put her whole heart and soul into every hug she gave,” she said.

But Schiavone also spoke of her devotion to teaching, the profession she had chosen as a little girl, and the extra mile she went for her students.

“It does not surprise me at all that Vicki died protecting her kids,” Schiavone said.

Indeed, it was that heroism that brought 400 mourners to the Lordship Community Church, half of them seated on a lawn outside and listening to the eulogies over a public address system. The church is affiliated with the United Church of Christ, the descendant church of the New England Congregationalists.

Gary McNamara, chief of the Fairfield Police Department, who rushed to the Sandy Hook school shortly after the shooting, said Soto “pushed children into a closet and allowed others kids to escape” before she herself was killed by Adam Lanza, 20, who was armed with a semi-automatic rifle.

“All law enforcers are asked what we do if given that moment when a life-threatening decision has to be made,” McNamara said. “She answered that question: Through her strength, she took action to save the life of the students. I know because I’ve spoken to children in that class who are alive because of what she did.”